1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of educational and amusement devices, and more particularly, to the field of electronic testing devices for use with educational books.
2. Prior Art
Each day in our schools, students confront the rigors of having to complete homework assignments and exams by means of answering text book questions appearing at the end of each chapter in the book. The students turn to the assigned pages and read through the questions, answering them on separate sheets of paper. If a student is completing a homework assignment, he may turn to the back of the textbook after writing down his answers to compare them with those written therein. On the other hand, if the student is taking a quiz or completing a homework assignment to be turned in to the teacher, he must wait for return of his answer sheet before he can find out how well he did.
However, students regard this conventional testing method as boring due to the lack of an interactive quiz format or process from which they can derive immediate and entertaining feedback for reinforcing that which they have learned. Students are therefore prevented from maximizing their comprehension of the subject matter being tested because of a lack of motivation caused by their perception of conventional testing methods. In attempting to remedy this pervasive problem in the educational field, several testing devices have been developed for use with special quiz or textbook formats so as to enhance the otherwise routine task of writing down a formulated answer and comparing it with the correct answer on another page of the text book.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,536 issued to Kay et al., a programmed learning textbook is provided with self-testing quiz formats having several questions and a plurality of possible answers adjacent to each question. Next to each possible answer is a mottled design printed on the paper to conceal underlying indentations which distinguish the correct answers from the wrong answers. In order to determine whether a selected answer is correct, the student touches the mottled design and feels for specific indentations which indicates the correctness of the selected answer. Similarly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,604,065 and 4,990,093 both issued to Frazer et al. disclose a teaching apparatus consisting of a detector pen for use in discriminating between areas on a printed substrate which may be adapted to the question and answer areas of a worksheet or book. The pen senses the non-visual, magnetic properties of the different areas to indicate whether a correct or incorrect answer has been selected. The pen also displays the results for each question and/or for a plurality of questions making up a test. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,879 issued to Chang et al. discloses a self-teaching book having a number of questions and a number of electronic units on which a plurality of answers corresponding to each question are displayed for the user to choose from. Each electronic unit comprises several conducting, insulating and source layers which form an answer sheet for the detection of correct and incorrect answers when the user presses a particular unit to indicate his selection. A plurality of slots are respectively disposed in the insulating layers so as to permit electrical contact between the conducting and source layers for activating the electronic device upon pressing a selected possible answer.
In each case, the mundane task of quiz taking is made more interactive and enjoyable because of the immediate feedback provided by each of the aforementioned devices. Nonetheless, these devices are limited in their application and utility because they require the use of specially manufactured books or materials for implementing the detection surfaces which indicate whether an adjacent, possible answer is correct. Furthermore, these devices cannot be utilized with pre-existing books and materials since such preexisting materials are not manufactured with the detection surfaces necessary for detecting the correctness of the selected answers.
In an analogous field, several teaching and testing devices, such as those in U.S. Pat. No. 4,773,860 issued to Gannaway et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,062 issued to Cutler et al., have been implemented in the form of a housing that holds attached information cards having question and answer data displayed thereon. In both cases, the user selects an alphanumeric character printed on the information card representing a possible answer to a question also displayed on the card. The character is input to a microprocessor via either an input keyboard or an electrical probe used to activate electrical contacts in the housing. As the user answers each question, the device produces audio and/or visual output indicating correctness of the user's selection, and at the end, outputs test statistics representing the user's final score in answering all the questions on the information card.
A major drawback with such devices exemplified by the aforementioned references, however, is that they rely on specially developed information cards to present the question and answer data to the user. Accordingly, these devices cannot be utilized in testing the specific information presented in a particular pre-existing text and are generally more expensive because of the additional costs involved in development of the information cards. These difference are very important with respect to utilizing such devices in classroom settings since it is desirable to provide a cost effective means for testing the students with specific information provided in the textbooks being utilized in the class so as to provide a unified program in which the students read a chapter of the text and subsequently answer questions directly related thereto.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide an electronic testing device for use with a programmed text book having a plurality of quizzes to test the reading comprehension of the user by comparing user selected answers entered into the device with corresponding correct answers stored in memory and to provide audio-visual feedback representing the correctness of the selected answers.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide an electronic testing device having a small and compact rectangular housing adapted for either permanent affixation or removable attachment to a protruded edge of the back cover of a text book.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide an electronic testing device having a small and compact rectangular housing rotatably coupled to the back cover of a text book for rotation between an operating position adjacent to an edge of the book and a stored position within a storage recess of the back cover.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide an electronic testing device for use with a plurality of quizzes of a plurality of different educational books, the device comprising a logic section having a first programming mode for programming the correct answers of a plurality of quizzes from different books and a second testing mode for selecting questions of an identified quiz, comparing user selected answers with the correct answers of the identified quiz and outputting a response signal to the display means and audible means of an output section for indicating the correctness of the user selected answers.
It is still a further objective of the present invention to provide an electronic testing device for use with a plurality of quizzes of a plurality of different educational books, the device comprising an alphanumeric key pad for entering both correct answers and user selected answers comprising a variety of character strings and an LCD or LED display screen for displaying both types of answers in addition to text designators and quiz codes for identifying a particular quiz of a particular text book.